


Desert Freeze

by raendown



Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [75]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, M/M, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 21:10:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21434770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raendown/pseuds/raendown
Summary: Lost in the desert, Kagami is dying under the burning sun and asks the universe to grant him mercy. The universe answers.
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Kagami
Series: NaNoWriMo 2020 Drabbles [75]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1533161
Comments: 20
Kudos: 149





	Desert Freeze

Kagami stumbled on trembling legs, panting for moisture that just wasn’t there, mouth wide open though he knew that would only dehydrate him faster in this forsaken desert heat. Over every sand dune was nothing but more sand dunes and no matter how many times he thought he saw a distant shimmer of water it turned out to be the sun reflecting off all this never-ending blasted sand. If he made it out of here without shriveling up in to a prune of a shinobi Kagami was never going to complain about mud again. He would kill for some mud at the moment.

As he crested the next dune Kagami felt one of his knees wobble dangerously but there was really nowhere here to sit down so he took another step regardless. Which turned out to be a poor decision. The moment he set his weight on that same leg it folded underneath him and Kagami was too exhausted to do anything but allow his body to roll down the side of the hill, tumbling end over end like a discarded rag doll.

Reaching the bottom and finally rolling in to a pathetic heap wasn’t much of a relief. The sunburns on his face were scraped and torn by the sand and it felt like his entire body was coated with grit, chafed raw to the point where he would not be surprised to discover that he was little more than a walking open sore. Laying still meant that he had nothing else to concentrate on but the baking heat of the sun pounding down and the disgusting dryness of his own mouth. This was hell. Actual literal hell and it stretched for miles.

“Why have you forsaken me?” he moaned dramatically in a weak rasp. Not to any deity or spirit in particular but rather as a general blanket inquiry to the universe at large.

To his great surprise, he received an answer.

Kagami’s gasp was ragged and painful when he felt a cooling touch upon his brow, snapping his eyes open, though for a few moments he could see nothing past the mind-numbing relief. As the world slowly filtered back in the first thing he noticed was that the air around him was cold. Really cold. The second thing he noticed was a large white form in the corner of one eye much too close to just be a distant pale sand dune.

If he had a hundred guesses he would not have been able to imagine the being that had appeared at his side. Though he’d been one hundred percent sure that there wasn’t another living creature for dozens of miles in any direction he couldn’t discount the evidence of his own too eyes – even if the evidence his eyes were giving him was more than a little unbelievable.

Clad in little more than a sheer blue loincloth, snow white skin patterned with mesmerizing lines of red to match his jewel-like eyes, whatever this was standing beside him it clearly was not a human. No human could stand in the desert and breathe frost as though the tundra were frost-bitten rather than riddled with burning sunlight. Kagami tried to swallow, grimacing at the motion of it, and watched the mist curling out of perfectly bow-shaped lips. If this was nothing more than a dying hallucination then it was at least a good one. He would die happy if this was the last thing he saw, a gorgeous godly specimen come to rescue him from his fate as a withered shinobi husk.

“Rest easy, human, for no heat may touch you so long as I am here.” Despite the cold he brought with him the voice that came out was liquid fire and that was a kind of heat Kagami definitely did not mind.

“Who are you?” he whispered, unable to speak any louder.

“I am Tobirama,” was his answer. “I am the winter and the freeze, I am the cold wind that sweeps and the frost that settles. You called for aid and I have come to answer your plea.”

“Am I dying?” Kagami asked.

The spirit or god or whatever Tobirama was knelt down to bless him with a smile. “Not anymore. I claim you for my own.”

When he reached out to brush his fingers across Kagami’s cheeks it felt as though winter itself were passing from one body to the other in a great chilly rush and when he opened his own mouth to breathe out Kagami was oddly unsurprised to see a cool mist forming above his lips.

“I’m all yours,” he promised, voice coming so much easier. Everything felt better from the top of his head right down to his toes, the sensation of heat entirely gone and yet neither did he feel cold. When Tobirama reached out a hand Kagami brought an arm up to meet him in the middle and noted that his own skin was oddly paler than it had been before. A side effect, possibly, of having winter pressed in to his skin.

He had no idea what was really going on, whether he had truly died or been saved by the embodiment of cold, but he supposed it didn’t matter. This was better than baking in the desert. When Tobirama pulled Kagami followed, all unaware of the way his memories of humanity were already fading away.


End file.
